Astros' top 50 moments: Tal's firing left hill to climb

Tal Smith stands in the room after Astros owner Drayton McLane announced the purchase agreement with a group headed by Houstonian Jim Crane,Monday, May 16, 2011, in Houston.The sale of the ball club will be finalized once it is approved by Major League Baseball. ( Karen Warren / Houston Chronicle )

Photo: Karen Warren

The moment: Dissolution of the 1980 division champions.

Moment behind the moment: The firing of general manager Tal Smith throws team into turmoil.

The picking apart of the first Astros team ever to make the playoffs happened not all at once but in several steps beginning with Smith's firing immediately after the season.

Smith's firing after the Astros broke an 18-year playoff drought caused a stir even within the ownership group.

McMullen at the time told the press: "Every man has a time limit on his effectiveness. If a man can't do it in five years, he can't do it in 10."

The next five years saw the Astros tread water and gradually lose pieces of that team beyond J.R. Richard, who suffered a stroke at midseason. Joe Morgan was released and signed with the Giants. Cesar Cedeno was traded for Ray Knight. Ken Forsch was traded for Dickie Thon.

The moves curtailed an NL power at one year plus a strike-shortened semi-success, with the final straw being Bill Virdon's ouster halfway through the 77-85 season of 1982.

Smith would return to the Astros in 1994 as president of baseball operations, presiding over the franchise's only real run of sustained success and then the dissolution of a team that made six playoff appearances in nine years.

Translator

Get insights, lively discussion and, of course, debate from Houston Chronicle columnists and guests every Thursday as they take on the most current hot-button topics in sports. Please subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. It helps! Thanks!